For the Love of God

People in many cultures, Hebrew and pagan alike, tended to do that, to go to the highest place around in order to go apart and in effect to feel that there they could be closer to God.

We heard it in the First Lesson today, with Moses climbing Sinai in order to talk with God and receive the ten commandments.

2 Peter reports that Peter was one of those with Jesus on the mountain of transfiguration and he knows what was said of Jesus: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well-pleased.”

And then Matthew reports the entire episode: the vision, the disciples reaction, the heavenly voice, Jesus' reassurance, and final admonition.

Here, as elsewhere, the disciples are depicted as being slow to catch on to what is really happening.

And the key problem is that they want to try to control the event, to make it fit into old categories, to manage it in some way, rather than simply absorbing the experience.

The vision begins with the disciples having the privilege of seeing Jesus in an anticipation of the resurrection, with Jesus in dazzling white.

The second part of the vision is the appearance of Moses and Elijah; Moses who led the Hebrews out of slavery in Egypt at God's direction and brought them the Ten Commandments; and Elijah the outspoken prophet who was taken away at the end of his life in a fiery chariot, and who was popularly expected to return before the Messiah would be revealed.

Jesus doesn't need this vision, but the disciples do.

They are invited to see it, experience it, marvel at it, ponder its meaning, give thanks to God for it, and at the right time to others about it.

But what Peter actually does is to try to manage the event.

He tries to domesticate the experience by offering to construct shelters perhaps like those that are traditionally made during the Jewish Festival of Booths.

It is the very human thing of trying to fit a new experience into an old category.

But this is new, unlike anything that the disciples have known, and it does not fit old understandings.

It cannot be managed.

One of my times in Israel, I was privileged to visit Mt. Tabor, the site traditionally ascribed to the Transfiguration.

It was a white-knuckle trip in a small car up the narrow road.

There are no guard rails; my Israeli friends are talking and gesturing as they drive; they race around the hairpin turns; the tourist buses are coming down as we try to go up.

It was a relief to get out of the car at the top.

And the view across the central agricultural valleys of Israel was spectacular.

What is so human and so humorous is that Christians have succumbed to Peter's edifice-complex.

Jesus had ignored Peter's offer to building shelters on that mountain, but subsequent Christian visitors had taken on the job anyway.

There is a large pilgrimage church, built and rebuilt over the centuries, together with monastic buildings, gardens and parking lots on the mountain top.

It is all very handy for managing the crowds and giving shelter in inclement weather, but it seems to fly in the face of the unmanageable event of the Transfiguration.

The disciples were only to enjoy and marvel.

The Venite, the portion of Psalm 95 which we use every weekday in Morning Prayer, begins: Oh, come, let us sing unto the Lord; let us shout for joy to the rock of our salvation.

Each of the explanations of the 10 commandments in Luther's Small Catechism begins this way: We are to fear and love God, so that....

A century after Luther, the English Westminster Catechism answered the first question about our purpose in life like this: Man's chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever.

Taken together, those catechisms and scripture are perhaps tasting some of the right flavor of the transfiguration event: to enjoy God, for the love of God.

Let's say that we bump into a young man whom we haven't seen for a while, and the young man goes on and on about his beloved: how she is the most wonderful woman in the world, her beauty, her brilliance, her technical prowess, and the endearing smile.

We're obviously in the presence of one who has fallen in love.

The situation cannot be programmed or managed, just experienced joyfully.

If we were to ask the truly dumb question “What good does that love do you?”, we would only be proving that we had never been in love ourselves, or simply could not comprehend the situation of love in someone else.

To reduce love to the utilitarian, the practical, the pragmatic is to rob love of its joy.

So, too, when we come to talk of the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, especially in the context of the church's worship, we would be foolish to ask only “What good does it do for me?” or “What do I get out of it?”

Our hymns, sermons, prayers, processions, icons, stained glass, organs, choirs, candles, and more will seem silly to the person who asks only “Now what good did that do?”

But a person in love with God doesn't ask that question, but rather asks first: “What of myself can I put into the worship of God; how can I express my love?”

We come to church not simply for edification, explanation, direction, or exhortation; we come for the love of God.

In the 4^th stanza of Wesley's hymn Love Divine, All Loves Excelling, we sing:

Finish them thy new creation;

Let us see that great salvation....

Till in heaven we take our place,

Lost in wonder, love, and praise.

The author says that the ultimate goal of the Christian life is to finally be in that place and in that time beyond all time when we have no more important work to do for God than simply to allow ourselves to be “lost in wonder, love, and praise,” enjoying God.

Theologian Marva Dawn, whom I met at a workshop about 20 years ago, wrote a great book on worship entitled A Royal Waste of Time.

Of course she is speaking with irony, since she makes it clear that we worship for the sheer pointless joy of it, not wasting time at all!

God doesn't need it, but he desires it of us, and invites us to engage in it.

The purpose of singing a song,

of playing an instrument,

of time spent in worship,

is not to get it over with as quickly as possible, but to savor it, to enjoy it, and then to share it.

Peter got stuck babbling at the Transfiguration when he should have been quiet.

So we need to pray for discernment for when it is time to be quiet in adoration, and then also when it is time to talk, laugh, and sing with all exuberance.

So our next hymn starts us off in the right spot, helping us to recognize that before we have something to say, there is much for us to hear, see, and experience.

Let all mortal flesh keep silence....

Ponder nothing earthly minded,

For with blessing in his hand,

Christ our God to earth descending....

And we sing with the hosts of heaven,

Alleluia! Alleluia, Lord Most High!

For the love of God. Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.